Chapter 417: Boarding the Ghost Ship
Ning Qingxue saw that there was a silver plum tree leaf pattern under the bird’s neck and had a sudden idea, "I’ll give you a name, I’ll call you Silver Plum Leaf. Hmm, this name is a bit long, I’ll just call you Silver."
The bird seemingly understood Ning Qingxue’s words and chirped. This sounded different to the yowling, it was a happy sound. She could tell that it didn’t really understand what Ning Qingxue meant with that name, after all, it was just a bird.
Normally, animals have premonitions to sense danger. Since Silver had had this premonition, this meant that the volcano really was about to erupt.
Although she had Silver by her side, Silver was a bird after all. Ning Qingxue approached the ship, the hand which held the gun was sweating a lot. Sometimes, the unknown was the most terrifying. If she had been facing a lion or a tiger, she might have not be that scared. After all, it was something she could see.
As she got closer to the ship, Ning Qingxue had an uneasy feeling. She couldn’t just charge at it like the primitive people had done.
Her surroundings were eerily silent. If there weren’t clustered footprints, Ning Qingxue couldn’t have been really sure that they had all gone on the ship.
Ning Qingxue jumped aboard and immediately felt a bleak wind attacking her, the necklace on her chest emitted a light barrier and pushed the bleak wind away. Ning Qingxue could even faintly hear a scream.
Silver flew to the top of the boat behind Ning Qingxue, its expression was worried like her’s.
Ning Qingxue looked at the necklace, she knew it had saved her once again. She subconsciously looked back at Silver and felt a little assured. She said to Silver, "Stay behind me."
Silver immediately jumped down and followed Ning Qingxue closely. Ning Qingxue looked around the ship, it was empty.
Ning Qingxue stopped on the deck and her spirit sense scanned inside. It was the same as yesterday, a table of food and wine, mostly cooked food, but she couldn’t see a single person.
Suddenly, she felt her spirit sense scan a black shadow, but immediately after, it was gone and it looked like it had gone into the bottom bunker.
Ning Qingxue stopped. She felt goosebumps. She hadn’t expected her spirit sense to be able to detect that shadow. So, the spirit sense could see things the eyes couldn’t.
She was scared of what she couldn’t see. Once she saw it, she was no longer scared. Ning Qingxue walked into the ship’s compartments.
There were two levels, the surface level and the bottom bunker.
Ning Qingxue remembered that the black shadow disappeared into the bottom bunker. At that moment, her spirit sense found a black shadow charging at her. Ning Qingxue subconsciously moved aside and sprayed her gun at the shadow.
Bang bang bang! It had been an extraordinarily clear sound in the silent boat but Ning Qingxue could see the black shadow retreat back inside unscathed. Her gun had no effect on the shadow.
It was really a ghost, Ning Qingxue’s hands shook. If Silver didn’t chirp from time to time, she would have gone crazy by then, being in the depth of a boundless ocean on a spooky boat.
She remembered the shriek in the heaven pit at Shen Nong Jia. If Ye Mo hadn’t left her a protection charm, she would’ve died.
But that day, she seemed to be facing an even stronger ghoul. From what Ye Mo had said, they weren’t afraid of bullets. If Ye Mo hadn’t given her the necklace, she would’ve ended up like those primitive men.
Thinking about this, Ning Qingxue shook again. Were all the people aboard this ship killed by the ghoul like the primitive people? Why was the ghoul doing this? When the ghoul had charged at her, she felt as though it was trying to devour her soul. Did these ghouls devour people’s souls? She wouldn’t have believed in these sort of stuff before she started cultivated either, but there were many things in this world that science couldn’t explain.
Ning Qingxue looked at Silver, who was following her closely and she felt a little relived. She put the gun away, took out a fireball charm and walked into the bottom bunker. She knew that the gun was useless.
It was a pity Ye Mo wasn’t there. If he were there, he could see that the ghoul was similar to the one he had annihilated at Chun An. However, the ghoul had been purposely raised by the red-robed woman from the 9 moon sect.
Normally, people’s spirits disappeared naturally from the world after death. That some spirits condense and don’t dissolve must be due to some special reason.
Ning Qingxue kept her spirit sense open. As soon as she went into the bottom bunker, she found the black shadow hiding on the side. However, with her power, she could only see a black figure. If it had been Ye Mo, he would have been able to see that the spirit had a solid, not mist-like, shape. He would have immediately realized that there must be a ghost keeper behind that ghoul, just like the red-robed woman.
When Ning Qingxue saw the ghoul, she felt scared but still gathered up courage and walked towards it. But she had only walked two steps when she stopped, changing directions.
She remembered the speed of the ghoul, it was too fast. And, she was sure the ghoul would be able to see her if she walked over, she wouldn’t be able to ambush it for sure.
As soon as Ning Qingxue changed directions, the black figure that was about to move stopped.
Food and water splashed everywhere. Ning Qingxue avoided these things, and neared the shadow.
When she was just about 3 meters from it, Ning Qingxue threw out her fireball charm and yelled "Lin!".
The black shadow didn’t expect Ning Qingxue to suddenly do this. In that instant, it got consumed by the fireball.
There was a loud shriek, then, the fireball disappeared and so did the black shadow along with it.
Ning Qingxue breathed, relieved. Finally, the ghoul had been annihilated. The fireball charm was stronger than a submachine gun. But Ning Qingxue immediately realized, it wasn’t that the fireball charm was stronger than the gun, but more like the fireball charm was more effective against ghosts.
Ning Qingxue searched the bottom bunker again and couldn’t find anything strange. She didn’t know how lucky she had been this time. This ghoul was a ghoul that escaped after Ye Mo killed the red-robed woman. Somehow, it was taken to America and went on the Bema. When the pirates took the women, it also followed them.
Those people had made it stronger. However, its master was killed by Ye Mo. It fed following basic instincts. If Ning Qingxue hadn’t had the necklace, she would’ve died countless times. Or, if that red-robed woman was still there, Ning Qingxue still wouldn’t have been able to escape.
As though it knew that Ning Qingxue had annihilated the ghoul, Silver chirped celebrating her master’s victory.
Ning Qingxue wiped some sweat off her forehead and waved to Silver. They walked up to the surface. Although she had annihilated the ghoul, she really didn’t want to stay in the bottom bunker.
She could guess that the entirety of the people in the ship were gone due to the ghoul, so she didn’t feel like staying in that dark bleak bunker.
Returning to the top, Ning Qingxue remembered an important thing. She didn’t know how to pilot the ship nor use the sail to control the direction.
Ning Qingxue smiled bitterly and walked to the head of the ship. Suddenly, she was dazed. The ship had been perched next to the island, and she didn’t control the sails. But now, the ship was far from that island.